Leftovers
by Jessahme Wren
Summary: Two ficlets...Jack and Renee tackle Thanksgiving and Black Friday in their own special way. Just a bit of crackfic holiday fun!
1. Homeland Security

Jack peered into the cavernous depths with rapt attention. The heat from within the opening blasted his face, threatening to singe his eyebrows or, at the very least, ruddy the tender skin along his eyes and cheeks. Renee appeared beside him, as equally engaged by the subject, one errant strand of hair waving in the shimmering heat.

"So, what do you think?"

Jack narrowed his gaze, his forehead wrinkling in consternation. He considered. "It looks done to me," he said seriously.

The turkey within was indeed a beautiful golden brown, with a seemingly crisp, taut, and glistening skin Renee depressed the bulb on the turkey baster and steeped it in more of its own juices, very much like she'd seen on a dozen or so cooking shows on so many cable networks, and sighed. For her first Thanksgiving dinner, this was going surprisingly well, she found herself thinking. She allowed herself a little smile.

She was just about to close the oven door when her eyes fell upon a small, peculiar looking protuberance jutting from the turkey's breast. She furrowed her brow.

"Jack…"

But he had already spotted it. It was a white plastic plunger, about an inch and a half in length, and it extended from the flesh of the turkey where it disappeared into a red circular base.

"Let's get it out of there," Jack said seriously and, grabbing some potholders, he hefted the roasting pan onto the stove top where they could both examine it properly.

The oven door closed with a muted thud, and Renee wiped her hands on the front of her apron. She tucked the renegade strand behind her ears. For a moment, they simply looked at it, but the longer they peered at the plastic oddity, the more suspicious it appeared. It was Renee who spoke first. "What the hell is that thing Jack?"

He turned, looking at her, his demeanour vastly more serious. In lieu of answering he posed another question, his tone grave. "Have you been out of the apartment at all today?"

Renee's first inclination was to say "no," but then she remembered. "Um, yeah," she said, her mind working, "I went down stairs to get the mail. I couldn't've been gone for more than a few minutes, though."

Jack looked warily at the golden brown turkey as though it were now a coiled viper waiting to strike. "That's long enough," he said darkly. "Dammit!" He whipped out his cell phone.

"Jack," Renee put a hand on his arm, alarmed, "what are you not telling me?"

His heart thundered as he dialed the number. "I've seen this before," he said evenly. "That piece of plastic…it's the detonator on a small-scale explosive device favoured by a sleeper cell here in D.C. That plunger is a weathervane. The gradual cooling of the turkey or any sudden vibration will trigger a highly volatile explosion."

Renee eyed it coolly, the white bone finger of the anomaly in question pointing obtrusively upward.

"But how—"

Jack ended the call in disgust. "Chloe's not answering." His eyes searched the room, vying for something to help diffuse the situation. He made his way around the kitchen, fumbling through cabinets and opening drawers.

"I defused one of these once," he said as he plundered under the sink. "If we can disrupt the temperature gradation, cool it off quickly," he straightened, having found what he was looking for in a pair of compact fire extinguishers, "then the bead of mercury inside will stall, and so will detonation. It's not a permanent fix, but it'll buy us some time."

Renee eyed Jack knowingly, game face slipping firmly into place, and grabbed one of the fire extinguishers. With a resolute nod, she pulled the pin. They took aim and blasted the perfectly cooked turkey until it was complete covered in fire retardant foam. The chemical reaction of the CO2 cooled the bird quickly and, as a result, rendered the explosive harmless-at least until the bomb squad arrived.

They emptied their ammunition and sank to the kitchen floor in front of the sink. Fire retardant was everywhere: it slogged down the walls and billowed from the countertops to creep along the floor. Tufts of foam peppered Renee's hair and melted into Jack's jeans. And, beneath a particularly rotund mound atop the stove, sat their Thanksgiving turkey.

As they sagged against cupboard, Jack's phone rang. It was Chloe. Jack gave a small sigh of relief.

"Chloe, thank God. I need the bomb squad…there's been an incident at the apartment." He paused, no doubt to register her inquiry, and listened as she spoke. "No, no we're not hurt, but we're gonna need back up…An explosive…Yeah. Someone gained entrance into the apartment and planted a localized explosive in the oven, of all places." He stopped, listening to Chloe. "What? No, in the turkey. Plastic detonator cap very much like the one from Hainan."

He described the offending implement in detail, and as Chloe was speaking, a strange look passed over his face.

For a moment, Jack was silent. He swallowed, looking sick. "Oh," he said rather mildly. "Are you sure?" A beat. "Uh huh."

In the confusion and aftermath of the kitchen crisis, neither of them had heard the early dinner guests arrive at the front door. Using her key, Kim had let herself in and now stood in the doorway of the ruined kitchen. She had little Teri by the hand, with Stephen standing behind them, and they were dressed for dinner.

"Dad?"

Jack looked up, surprised to see them so early and a bit dumbstruck by the new intel he'd just received. "Hi sweetheart," he said sheepishly. He turned to Renee, who was looking more flustered by the minute. "Well…the bad news is, that wasn't an explosive," he began hesitantly. There was a smudge of fire retardant foam on his cheek, and his shirt had been ruined by the blowback.

Renee looked at him incredulously. "And the 'good' news?"

Jack smiled. "Apparently the turkey's done."


	2. Black Ops

Chloe sat in the early morning stillness, snugged into a fluffy bathrobe, thoroughly miserable. She was chill, and her head and body ached with a dozen little horrors associated with seasonal flu. Her hair was pulled back into a loose pony tail, and her frown was even deeper than usual.

She looked dismally into her hand-thrown mug, the lemon-ginger concoction steaming blissfully against her stuffy nose, offering a brief respite from the stabbing sinus pain and pressure that had dammed her breathing and precluded any hope of sleep.

Not like she could sleep now, anyway.

She displaced the tea, her fingers finding the keyboard of her laptop as she pulled up the schematic she'd studied all evening. The mission was a tricky one, she knew, fraught with every potential for complication and failure, and while she had every confidence in Renee's prowess in the field, Chloe wasn't as sure of the amount of experience she'd had with these types of missions. In fact, after the initial briefing, Chloe felt that Renee might be underestimating the difficulty of this particular assignment. After a few keystrokes, she donned the headset and activated her comm.

"Agent, what's your twenty?"

Chloe's voice broke into her thoughts with comical insistence. As a consequence to her current physical condition, her usual business-like clip came out a bit nasally and muffled. Elmer Fudd running tactical.

She smiled and put a hand to her ear, trying to look inconspicuous. "I'm at the drop point, about twenty yards out."

Renee's breath came in little puffs, frosting the air lightly as she exhaled. Her eyes narrowed as she viewed the entrance, miles away it seemed, in the early morning dark.

It was 4:49 am. Ten minutes to go.

Chloe glared at the schematic, making mental calculations, and frowned.

"You need to be closer to the entrance, Renee. Once those doors open, time is of the essence."

Renee sighed. She'd agreed to take on this task as a favour to Chloe, and for Prescott. Since Chloe had the flu and Morris was out of town, she'd asked Renee to stand in for her at the Black Friday sale, during which the "must have" toy of the season would be sold exclusively at this store and for a limited time only. Fail this mission and run the risk of spoiling little Prescott's Christmas, the probable reason Chloe was being, well, very _Chloe_. That, coupled with the fact that she was sick, did not a happy Chloe make.

"I'm plenty close Chloe. Just trust me, ok?"

Chloe scrunched her face, anything but believing. "What's the concentration of hostiles?"

Renee couldn't suppress a laugh. "You know, you're usually the one telling me that."

Chloe sipped at the steadily cooling tea and rolled her eyes. "And I usually have Milo running aerial when I'm not sitting in my bathrobe feeling like hell. How many between you and the door?"

Renee did a quick assessment of her surroundings. Men, women, and to her surprise, even a few sleepy children stood close together in line outside the store, bundled against the cold. Some had thermoses, some were talking on phones. Others perused their well-worn copies of the After Thanksgiving Day circular, their bodies tense and faces expectant. She did a quick count. "Twenty, maybe twenty-five. Jammed pretty tight."

Chloe fingered the paper tag on her teabag and creased her brow. "You think you can handle it?"

Renee's eyes narrowed and her voice betrayed the edge acquired of waiting for two hours in a freezing drizzle outside a locked store with an army of crazed, sleep deprived bargain hunters. "Of course I can handle it, Chloe, it's only shopping."

Chloe pursed her lips, considering. She drummed her fingers against the mug. "And you're clear on the objective."

It was Renee's turn to roll her eyes. "I've been briefed, yes."

Chloe let out a breath. "Ok. Let me know once you're in; I've calculated the most efficient route through the store, taking into account probable areas of heavy traffic."

Renee fidgeted with her cell phone. "Absolutely," she said, a little distracted. She suddenly wished she was back home, spooning under the covers with Jack, instead of freezing her ass off in a shopping mall parking lot with Bossy!Chloe running comm. She was cold, wet, and irritated.

As she was daydreaming about sleepy morning sex and croissants in bed, Renee hadn't noticed the subtle change amid her fellow shoppers. The predawn parking lot now crackled with tension, and she was startled at the abrupt change in the people waiting in line with her. The crowd had become more vocal, and somewhere a ten second countdown ensued. Renee absently looked at her watch again. Before she had time to act, however, the throng suddenly pushed forward in a massive wave, momentarily catching her off guard. People pressed in on all sides, the girth of Gore-Tex and down jackets threatening to squeeze the life from her, and she nearly stumbled. Up ahead, inside the store, Renee could see shoppers break free in all directions, pushing and shoving as they rushed full speed to their respective areas of interest. A few Red Shirts stood at the door, vainly holding their arms in front of them and chattering nervously into walkie talkies.

It was chaos. She glanced from one crazed, single-minded face to another and knew instantly that she was out of her depth.

Stunned, Renee put a hand to her ear as a bristle of unexpected fear raised the hairs on the back of her neck.

"Uh, Chloe," she said a little wide-eyed, "I think I'm gonna need some backup."

-0-0-0-


End file.
